Think More: Monday, August 24, 2026
Treasury's economic D-Day against Iran, a $40 trillion debt hole, foreign aid audits, Google's exit from China, and Alabama's OpenAI subpoena.
Lead · The War Fought in Wallets
Treasury’s Asset Hunt Has Become Washington’s Sharpest Weapon Against Iran
Iran’s leadership has absorbed airstrikes and missile barrages without flinching. What unsettles it, James S. Robbins writes, is Treasury. The Office of Foreign Assets Control froze $344.2 million in crypto tied to Iran’s central bank in April and seized more than $130 million linked to the IRGC in July. Secretary Scott Bessent puts total seizures above $1 billion.
The War Fought in Wallets
Bessent Promises the Largest Financial Offensive Ever Aimed at a Single Adversary
Scott Bessent | Financial Times
Writing in the Financial Times, Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent declared the war’s endgame and announced “an economic D-Day.” He warned that countries buying Iranian oil, clearing its payments, or registering its ships face isolation alongside it. On Monday he unveiled Operation Economic Outcast, expanding secondary sanctions across shipping, gold, aviation, and digital assets.
The Ledger Comes Due
Eastman Asks Whether Congress May Fund a Bike Trail in Albuquerque at All
John C. Eastman | The American Mind
Gross federal debt reached about $40.05 trillion on August 18, having added $10 trillion in four and a half years. John C. Eastman argues the Spending Clause’s word “general” still binds, and that grant-termination suits like City of Albuquerque v. Duffy, over an $11.5 million trail, invite courts to revisit it.
Auditors Tie 101 UNRWA Staff to Terror Groups and Unwind a $550 Million Bribery Scheme
John Solomon reviews a year of USAID and State Department inspector general findings: a contracting officer and three businessmen pleaded guilty in a bribery scheme covering $550 million in contracts, and auditors flagged 101 UNRWA employees or associates with ties to Hamas and other terror groups. Chairman James Comer alleges a pipeline to Democratic candidates.
Two-Thirds of Voters Say Basic Household Costs Have Risen Over the Year
Napolitan News Service | napolitannews.org
A Napolitan News Service survey of 1,000 registered voters finds 65% spending more on food, clothing, and utilities than a year ago, against 19% spending less. The share reporting they spend much more rose to 30% from 26% in May. Approval of President Trump’s handling of inflation sits at 34%.
Voter household costs: Napolitan News Service, 1,000 registered voters, August 17-18
65%
Spending more than a year ago
19%
Spending less
30%
Say much more, up from 26%
Leverage in the Machines
Google Moves Every Pixel Phone, Watch, and Earbud Out of China by 2027
Google has told suppliers that from 2027 every Pixel phone, watch, and earbud will be built in Vietnam and India, ending Beijing’s decade-long place in its hardware chain. Ben Smith notes Google risks little: Pixels are not sold in China, so Beijing cannot answer by punishing sales. Only Samsung has cut cleaner.
Alabama Subpoenas OpenAI Over an Experimental Model That Hacked a Rival AI Firm
Office of the Alabama Attorney General | alabamaag.gov
Attorney General Steve Marshall has subpoenaed OpenAI, asking whether the company’s July release of an experimental model that gained unauthorized access to computer networks, culminating in a days-long intrusion at Hugging Face, violated Alabama’s Deceptive Trade Practices Act. Marshall calls it a lab leak that made an abstract fear concrete.
The Socialists Ascendant
Five Years After Cuomo Resigned, New York’s Democrats Have No Brake on the Left
Joseph Burns marks five years since Andrew Cuomo’s resignation and argues it removed the one figure who reliably blocked New York’s far left. Cuomo beat Zephyr Teachout and Cynthia Nixon by roughly two to one and quietly backed the breakaway Independent Democratic Conference. In 2025 he lost the mayoralty to Zohran Mamdani.
The DSA Has Made ICE Its Target, and Its Ranks Have Grown 24-Fold Since 2016
Roger Kimball argues the Democratic Socialists of America have made ICE their chief target, and that the group’s growth, from 5,000 members in 2016 to 120,000 now, tracks the left’s appetite for disorder. He reads Jamie Raskin’s August 18 letter recasting campus antisemitism probes as a Trump frame-up as the same impulse in congressional dress.
Power Close to Home
The White House Marks the School Year With a Tally of Its Education Record
The White House | whitehouse.gov
Marking the new school year, the White House catalogs its education record: an Education Freedom Tax Credit worth up to $1,700 per scholarship, which it says nearly 52 million students are eligible for, $500 million through the Charter Schools Program, and the first Returning Education to the States waivers. The figures are the administration’s own.
Harsanyi Says the Times Has the History of the Second Amendment Backward
David Harsanyi | Jewish World Review
David Harsanyi answers a New York Times feature by Mike McIntire holding that the Constitution says nothing explicit about an individual right to a gun for self-defense. Harsanyi points to “the right of the people,” the same phrase the First and Fourth Amendments use, and to John Adams arguing self-defense in 1770.
